How do you determine how much to spend on speakers

Determine your budget and double it. Nice try swampwalker!

Hi George, welcome to posting on Audiogon. From your other posts, you are obviously a fan of Biro speakers -- I assume you're not affiliated with the company. Could you share your impressions compared to other speakers and perhaps tell us how you determined what to spend on speakers vs. other components? Thanks.

Hi there,
I am not affiliated with any company, just another music/audio junkie. I flew to Minn. to visit with Frank Van Alstine and listened for two days to various equipement that he makes by hand right in his house. I do own some of his stuff from years past when he recommended B&W speakers. He now doesn't and lets you listen to the Biro's next to the B&W's. The Biro's actually sound better, clearer, tighter etc... It is amazing that for $1,600 you can have that kind of sound and for $1,500 more you can ad the sub-woofer. If you think you can get better sound quality than his equipement for the $$$, you are not correct!
I have compared the Biro's without the sub to my Snell mk-2, c's and xa60's. I can get more base out of the xa's and the c's , however, the overall sound is not as good, I was shocked! If you ar looking for speakers and have quality electronics, consider van alstine as apposed to the mass marketed, then get the Biro's!!

Thinking back over 35 years of enjoying recorded and live music, I still find that the speakers are the single most important component--provided that one is talking about half-way decent components (say $500+ each).

Next in importance is the room: if you've ever been to a well-set-up recording studio, even a modest one, you'll know what I mean. The pros typically spend as much or more on room treatments than on components. The pay-off is awesome.

I spend 40-45% of my budget on the speakers, 45-50% on amplification and disc player and maybe 5% on cabling. Now I also use LP and listen to FM so there's additional component costs that I'm not including here.

So. . .if someone handed me $20K tomorrow and said it was mine--but only to use on upgrading one of my audio systems--I'd probably spend $1-2K on an extreme upgrade to my digital front end, but with the rest I'd buy the speakers I can't afford right now.

Engagement ring money...but get the prenuptial done so you get to keep the speakers!